The full story...

Abbott sees off 'international oddity', 'useless, destructive tax'

MARK COLVIN: The Government's finally fulfilled its promise to axe the carbon tax.

The Senate repealed it today, and with it any legislated emissions reduction policy.

The Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says Australia is now the first country to reverse action on climate change.

The Palmer United Party's demanding Coalition support for an emissions trading framework, but the Prime Minister is refusing to say if he'd ever support a price on carbon.

From Canberra Alexandra Kirk reports.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Senate has repealed Australia's carbon price seven years to the day since Malcolm Turnbull announced his government would start work on the world's most comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme.

TONY ABBOTT: Today the tax that you voted to get rid of is finally gone. A useless destructive tax which damaged jobs, which hurt families' cost of living and which didn't actually help the environment is finally gone. So that international oddity, that international aberration has now gone.

BILL SHORTEN: Today Tony Abbott has made Australia the first country in the world to reverse action on climate change.

BILL SHORTEN: Tony Abbott has demonstrated time and time again that he is an environmental vandal with no view of the future.

TONY ABBOTT: We are a conservationist government and we will do what we think is the sensible thing to try and bring emissions down.

BILL SHORTEN: History will judge Tony Abbott very harshly for refusing to believe in genuine action on climate change.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Greens were the only others to vote against repealing the carbon tax.

CHRISTINE MILNE: Today is a tragic day for Australia.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Christine Milne's pledged her party will fight the Government's direct action policy "every inch of the way".

CHRISTINE MILNE: It is a monumental blunder for this nation under a climate denying Prime Minister to not only engage in making life worse for all future generations, but it has also made Australia a pariah in the global community.

JACQUI LAMBIE: So you beauty, one to go, one to go.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Having dispensed with the carbon tax, Jacqui Lambie is looking ahead to the Palmer United Party's plan to put in place a framework for an emissions trading scheme (ETS).

JACQUI LAMBIE: Well you know what the Liberal Party has said that, that they'll bring in an ETS, and I guess if they don't, they're going to pay the punishment with that until they do, you know. I guess we've got them in a corner there and we have to do the right thing by the environment and other things, and we must have an ETS.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Jacqui Lambie's office accepts she made a mistake, saying while a deal has not been done, Clive Palmer's party expects the Government will agree to its ETS demand.

So will the Prime Minister rule out ever introducing a carbon pricing mechanism?

TONY ABBOTT: Well we're certainly not going to do anything that damages our economy or that puts our people or our businesses at an unfair competitive disadvantage. We're never ever going to do that. We stand up for Australia. We stand up for Australia.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: And the PM is sticking by the $550 a year average price increase of the carbon tax.

TONY ABBOTT: Now that the carbon tax is gone, we expect the price impact to be passed through, the price reductions to be passed through and the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has certainly been given stronger powers and more money to police that.

BILL SHORTEN: An emissions trading scheme is the policy which Labor will take to the next election.

TONY ABBOTT: The carbon tax is gone, but it seems it hasn't entirely been forgotten.

BILL SHORTEN: Australian's aren't silly, Australians get that climate change is real, they get that the sea levels are rising, they get there are more extreme weather events than ever before, they get that if we put more greenhouse gases into the environment that will trap more heat which will have consequences for our weather and the way this planet is organised.

So I do believe that an ETS argued through, learning the lessons of the past, communicating with Australians, with business, people are up for that.

TONY ABBOTT: Just at the moment Bill Shorten is promising to go to the election saying there will be a carbon tax under any government I lead. I suspect he might change his tune on that at some stage too.